The last time Pride of Detroit graded Jim Schwartz was back in October 2010. Despite the fact that the Detroit Lions had a 1-5 record of the time, 56 percent of the 1,524 voters gave Schwartz a B grade. 25 percent of the voters gave him a C, while 12 percent were so encouraged by what they saw that they voted for an A. The remaining 90 voters gave Schwartz a D (70 votes) or F (20 votes).
A month earlier, after the Lions started the season 0-2, 50 percent of more than 2,000 voters gave Schwartz a B grade. There was essentially a split between an A and C grade (20 percent voted A; 22 percent voted C), and the remaining percentile points went to D and F.
This was quite the change from the July 2010 poll, where 49 percent of 743 voters gave Schwartz an A, 44 percent gave him a B and almost all of the other voters gave him a C. Once the season got going most voters gave him a B, and that continued to be the case even after a 1-5 start.
Unfortunately no polls were conducted after October (these will be monthly things during the season going forward), so there's no data to look back on from the Lions' losing streak and then their winning streak to finish the season. We can now look back on Schwartz's first two years as a whole, though, and give him a grade for what he has done so far as the Lions' head coach. You can give him a grade by voting in the poll below, and feel free to explain your grade in the comments section. My vote and reasoning for it can be found after the jump.
After giving Schwartz an A back in July of last year, I dropped my grade to a B in September and kept that grade in October. Although the Lions did finish the season on a four-game winning streak, my grade remains unchanged, as I gave him a B again in this month's poll. While he might have been a healthy Matthew Stafford away from making a playoff run and easily receiving an A grade, I just personally feel like a B is a good assessment of what he's done with the Lions so far. He laid the foundation for future success in 2009, and 2010 served as a step forward despite all of the injuries. In 2011, if the Lions keep up their winning ways, I will have no problem raising his grade to an A. For right now, though, I'm sticking with a B, as it seems like the best of both worlds -- not too high since his overall record isn't that great, but not too low since he has done a lot of great things here, especially with what he has had to work with.